Absolute Zero
by AtomicScribble
Summary: I wasn't sure where I was, or if I was ever getting back. [partner fic to Eyes of a Nobody] [OC, no pairings]
1. Chapter 1

**Yes, it's here; the partner fic to Eyes of a Nobody. I hope you're happy. I didn't expect to get such praise for EoaN, really, but I guess I did well. Let's hope people like this one even more! It's told in the perspective of the OC.**

**Disclaimer for the whole story: The only people I own in here are Elizabeth and April, and everyone else is c. Disney and/or Square Enix.**

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My jaws hurt.

Yeah, I know that's an odd way to start telling my story, but it was true; I had been chomping on a piece of gum ever since last period at school. Not only that, but I was in the process of trying to get out of going shopping with my older sister. Trust me, that one took a lot of talking.

"You sure you don't wanna come with?" April asked, leaning over the empty passenger seat of her shiny new Convertable. Her hazel eyes, wide with innocence, were trying to get me a puppy dog look. It never worked, she knew, but she still did it.

I shifted my weight from my right to my left foot, flipping a stray strand of curly brown hair out of my eyes. "It's fine! You took me shopping last week, and I got plenty of clothes that time." A reassuring smile found its way onto my face for good measure. "Really!"

April stared at me for a long, long time. I rarely turned people down for things because a) It benefited me in some way, and b) It made me feel awful when the person would finally go away, but this time I had a project to work on along with my regular load of homework. The day I went shopping on a day like today was the end of the world.

Finally she shifted her car into drive again and gave me a careless shrug. "Alright, I understand. But you're coming with me next time I ask, ok?"

The reasurring smile turned into a grin. I hoisted my backpack higher on my back. "Ok."

My sister gave me a wink before zipping along down the road, newly-tuned engine grumbling noisily. I watched her go, coughing a little at the resulting exhaust fumes.

I think I should've taken her up on that offer. Sure, I'd just be putting off my work. Sure, I'd have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning trying to finish my homework, becoming so exhausted I'd sleep right through my presentation the next day. At least I'd have something more interesting to do and I could enjoy myself. I didn't know that what was about to happen was probably going to be more exciting than a shopping trip with my big sister.

I usually walk home alone, and today was no exception. My mom and dad worked until five or six, so I had the house to myself until they or my sister came home. I wasn't always lonely; if April went on shopping trips every afternoon, she'd be grounded for spending all our frickin' money. I liked when I had the house to myself, and I liked walking home alone. It gave me time to think.

I was currently in the process of watching for the crosswalk light to change when someone joined me at the stop. While waiting, I glanced over to them casually.

They were wearing a dark cloak, the hood drawn up over their head so I couldn't see their face. I eyed them suspiciously as the light changed, and we started to walk along the street. They didn't notice me, and even shoved me past so that they were ahead of me.

I opened my mouth to shout after them, then thought better of it. They were probably from any of the schools in the area...on second thought, they couldn't be, since there was only one high school in the town, and they couldn't be from the middle school or elementary schools, as they were pretty tall and broad; a full grown man, it looked like. _They're probably from the high school,_ I thought, still going at my normal pace, _They came down the path_ from _it._

The mysterious cloaked person was heading my route. They were going so fast that they were more trotting than walking, and they were almost out of my sight when suddenly they made an abrupt turn into the woods on one side of the sidewalk.

I stopped in my tracks near the gas station. What were they doing?! A high schooler would be smoking pot or something if they went into the woods-

Maybe they were going home.

I shook my head. No, there weren't any houses down there...were there? Not even my brother, who's been everywhere in the neighborhood, has ever brought his biking buddies down there, and there were rumors flying around school that it was a big smoking place, not a neighborhood.

Despite everything I had learned about rapists and strangers from my parents and from teachers, I followed the guy.

They had been running so fast that their footsteps had stamped out a barely visible path through the undergrowth. I made my way through it carefully, eyeing the signs of passage closely to confirm that I was going the right way. The person, student or not, was going the other way past the normal way that the smokers took, and were going into the deepest part of the woods.

Right, left, right, left...

Finally, I found them.

Or, rather, I found what they had left behind.

There was what looked like a glowing black orb hovering at the end of the path. Little tendrils of matching black smoke (or was it dry ice or something like that?) came out, dissolving a few feet away from where I stood. Delicately I approached it, the twigs and leaves snapping under my feet. Birds twittered high up in the trees, warning trills that something was wrong.

When I reached the thing, I reached my hand out and touched it. The orb was ice cold, my hand disappearing straight through. I withdrew my hand in disgust, rubbing it to get the little bits of smoke off of it.

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath when a little black piece became firmly implanted in my arm, impervious to my scrubbing. I leaned forward and put in both of my hands, watching with interest and curiosity as both of them disappeared.

I put in one foot, then another, then my whole body...

That was the biggest mistake I've made in my life.

Yup. Definitely should have gone on that shopping trip.


	2. Chapter 2

**People love this. A lot. For reasons beyond me.**

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It was dark, cold, and overall chaotic inside that black orb, which I later learned was a portal of sorts. There was no sign of the mysterious cloaked person anywhere; I was alone, shivering in my shorts and T-shirt.

And I was utterly miserable because of it.

"This is all your fault!" I called out in the void. "You led me here, you led me to this weird...weird...thing! My parents are going to flip their lids when they get home!"

No answer. I was now utterly positive I was alone.

Kicking the ground, I started forward towards the direction I offhandedly assumed was the way to go. Despite all the nothing around me, there seemed to be a one-way, clear path towards somewhere.

Where did that somewhere go?

It would sound stupid to anyone I would tell, but I think I was still in the town for some reason. Sure, there wasn't a building in sight when I walked into the portal, but maybe it was camoflauged? It was plausible; after all, there's no telling with what someone can do with some paint and a video screen these days. What if I was in some creepy child molestor's house?

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Oh, shit. I had never thought of that.

Quickly, I turned around to just go back home when there was a sound behind me. I turned to see, again, nothing, but my heart was beating a tad faster this time. My sneakers squeaked against the soft, transparent floor as I rotated myself, taking a slow, clear look around.

"Hello?" I tried tentavily, looking in the direction from which I heard the sound. At first, I just saw the same blackness, but as my eyes finally adjusted to the gloom, I made out another dark orb standing a few feet away. It looked just like the one that had piqued my curiosity and yanked me in, but there was no smoke this time, making it almost invisible.

Was that the way out? I was blindly hoping so as I took a few leaping steps forward, clearing the distance between me and the portal. I stuck my hands in, but didn't feel cold; the space beyond the orb actually felt like the air was room temperature. I stepped through every bit as carefully as before.

I found myself in a place much brighter than the void I had been in; the walls looked absolutely white after being in the darkness for even a short time, but as my eyes adjusted again, I noticed they were actually a pale silver.

And there was the same cloaked person, standing in front of me with his (or her?) arms crossed defensively.

Without waiting for me to regain my bearings, they demanded stiffly, "Who are you?"

It was definitely a man; the voice gave it away easily. It was calm, uncaring. I gave him a disbelieving look, refusing to answer his question.

He took a warning step towards me, and I took a step back from instinct. "I repeat, who are you?" he asked again, voice becoming almost unnoticably more irritated.

I crossed my own arms, voice every bit as stiff as his own. "Why should I tell you? I don't even know who you are."

"Answer me." He was gritting his teeth a little now.

I paused. "Show me your face first. I prefer to see who I'm talking to."

"If I show you, will you answer my question?"

"...yeah." _Smart, Liz, smart. _I wasn't supposed to know what a child molestor or a rapist looked like. Who did?

The man's posture slackened, and he pulled down the hood quickly. Giving me an icy glare was a pale faced, blue haired man. I raised an eyebrow at his unusually colored hair and eyes, especially taking a second glance at the scar in the middle of his face.

Something told me this guy wouldn't give me much leeway. I had to think fast; I couldn't give this guy my real name. Still in the same town or not, I couldn't let a total stranger know who I was. Giving a fake name was certainly a good diversion, but would he come after me if he found out I had lied?

That was a silly thought. _Think of something, stupid!_

I blurted out the first name I could think of. "Amanda." It was the name of my friend's sister; she was six, quiet, and overly obsessed with flowers.

Now it was the man's turn to raise one of his (blue?!) eyebrows. "I did not mean your name, girl."

_Oops._

"Do you live on Earth?" He was quieter now, more curious that he had gotten me to talk. The glare was still there, still sending shivers up my spine when combined with the overly calm voice.

"Earth?!" I gave the man a strange look. Had he lost his marbles? "Of course. We all live on the same planet, mister."

"I'm afraid we don't. Look around you."


	3. Chapter 3

**I was going to have Zexion quote Alice in Wonderland in this, seeing as he's rather bookish, but then I couldn't figure out if the Organization has the same books that we do, so I left it out. :/**

**idk this fic seems cliched to me.**

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So I took a look around.

I think the only thing worth noting was that the sky was pitch black, yet it was still daytime outside "at home". (And I put that in quotations because I was sure this man was lying about me being somewhere totally different.) There were skyscrapers looming out of the purple-tinted night, windows glowing with light yet I seeing no moving shadows behind the curtains. The streets of the city I now stood in the middle in were ghostly empty: not even a car or a person. In a normal city people would still be out and about at this hour.

I wasn't impressed. I turned back to the blue haired man with a disbelieving snort. "You've got to be kidding me. I bet this is just a photo blown up and pasted on the walls of some-"

"Oh?" The man's expression betrayed just the slightest hint of amusement, almost undetectable; a cold face for a cold voice. "How do you explain the portal you came through, then?" One of his gloved hands gestured behind me, where the black orb had disappeared into thin air.

"I..." A plink of rain fell in my eye, silencing me. I looked up. It wasn't supposed to be raining; the sky was clear! Or, maybe, the clouds were the same color as the sky. Wouldn't I see them, then?

"Or the rain falling upon our faces now?"

Silence fell between us as the rain began to fall. I moved to pull up the thin hood of my T-shirt up, the fabric offering little protection against the oncoming downpour. The man hooded himself as well, keeping his head dry and his face shrouded while I quickly became soaked.

Was I really somewhere different?

"This can't be happening!" I hissed at him. He held his ground, not intimidated by me at all. "What the hell did you do, mister?!"

He shrugged. Peering harder at the darkness under his hood, I could make out a toothy, predatory grin shining upon his face. "All I've done is opened the rabbit hole. You had the tenacity to follow me up to the spot on which we now stand."

"You kept the fucking portal open, you-"

"I did? Silly me. Now."

He lifted a hand, snapped the fingers. The crack bounded off the metallic walls of the surrounding buildings.

Soon after, I got my first glimpse of the strangest creatures I had ever seen in my life; I came to know them as Heartless.

The small, black, demon-like creatures surrounded my feet, glowing yellow eyes gazing at me hungrily. They came no higher than my waist, yet their eyes staring intensly at me filled me with a fear I couldn't place. It was instinctual; I had to get out of there somehow, in one piece or not.

I ran, and they chased me.

During the sprint for some kind of sanity in the crazy place I now found myself in, I dared a glance back at the black creatures. They were some way behind, the stubbier ones walking with a loping, jolting gait, while the thinner, more humanlike ones bounced wall off wall towards me rapidly. I was running at full tilt, and despite being a volleyball player and having to keep in top shape constantly, I was starting to lose breath.

I turned a corner sharply, pushing myself off the dark purple brick wall I slammed into in the process, and began to run again. I quickly stopped, panting amplified in the alleyway I had turned into. In front of me, about ten feet away, stood a matching purple brick wall.

Dead end.

I turned to face the Heartless, but they were gone. Thinking them to be just around the corner, about to catch up, I listened closely for the telltale twittering that accompanied their march. The ring of silence and the sound of rain on cement was the only thing that greeted my ears.

I let out a sigh of relief. Had I lost them? And if I had, what was I to do? My main concern was finding my way out...or finding food, water, and shelter if I was going to be here a while. Then I had to figure out if there were other people besides the blue haired man...

I froze as the sound of footsteps broke the silence. Slowly my eyes slid over to the entrance of the alleyway, where a shadow was coming up on the brick wall I had previously slammed against.

Though...it was human-shaped, not odd black creature-shaped.

_There are more of them?! _my panicked mind managed to spit out from the confusion now clouding my brain. _Don't tell me I have to fight! I can't climb this wall, it's too smooth!_

I gripped the wall behind me, nails scraping against the cement as the person turned the corner.

They were also hooded, like the blue haired man, but they were much shorter and more stocky. Their head quickly snapped around to where I crouched against the wall, chest heaving with my erratic breathing.

He tilted his head, examining me for a moment, then snorted and removed his hood. Hair that was closer to purple than silver fell over his face, concealing one eye. He looked no older than the seniors at high school back home, but his eyes held a sharpness and wisdom that easily matched that of the teachers.

"I decline to what Saix said to me," he mumbled to himself, striding forward to my cowering form, "She's not even worth killing."

"W-what?" I sputtered, moving so that I now stood stiffly, pressed against the wall.

"You heard me." He stopped a few feet away, smirking knowingly at my (quickly growing angry) face. "I said you're not worth killing, despite all Saix might have said to you."

"Saix?"

"The man you saw earlier, girl." He tilted his chin up, staring down at me as if he were taller than he was, although he stood at my height and didn't look very bulky behind his black coat. His gaze was still sharp, eyes looking me up and down too rapidly for me to follow. "Normally he's precise in cleaning up after himself, but everyone makes mistakes, I suppose."

I huffed, leaning forward to catch his eye with a steely glare of my own. He didn't falter. "Look, mister, I just got here-"

"Just got here?" He raised an eyebrow, eyes widening slightly. "You're from Earth, then?"

"What the hell?! Of course I am!" I threw up my hands, giving up on being intimidating. "You're all completely bonkers here!"

He chuckled. Some part of me expected him to quote Alice in Wonderland, giving the situation and what just slipped out of my mouth, but he didn't. "We don't get many visitors...oh."

He was staring at my arms. I followed his gaze and wrinkled my nose. The mist that had clung to my arms in the portal had seemed to burn my skin, leaving bruise-like burns in their wake. "Looks like you're not used to darkness, where you come from," he mused softly, lips upturned in a grin that presented itself as off.

I opened my mouth to retort to that too, but then he grabbed my arm and opened another portal. "Perhaps we can examine you, hmm?" He turned and grinned cruelly. "My name is Zexion, by the way. Welcome to The World That Never Was."


	4. Chapter 4

**Yay. Update. Sorry for the semi-lateness.**

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Zexion's grip was firm around my wrist, almost choking off the flow of blood to my hand. His shoes made resounding clicking sounds against the smooth metal floors of the enourmous room we were walking in. I didn't have time to slow down and look around, as his quick steps made me focus all of my concentration on not falling flat on my face.

Glassless windows in the walls gaped at us as the room became smaller and more confined, the dark sky flashing past in little segments. I struggled to keep my balance, feet tripping over one another, causing me to stumble rather than go at the confident trot Zexion was keeping up.

"May I ask where we're going?" I snapped through my teeth. I wasn't too pleased at being dragged to a place I didn't even know about by a complete stranger; who would be?

"You may ask, but it doesn't nessecarily mean I'll answer."

So I shut up for the rest of the trip, as it was obvious that if I tried to make conversation nothing would happen.

Many more silver and white hallways flashed by, large open rooms at the end of many of them, until Zexion came upon a closed door. He gave me a look, like the kind moms give to their troublesome kids.

"Wait here," he ordered, opening the door and shoving me inside.

It was about the size of two broom closets, windowless and completely empty. The harsh lights hanging from the ceiling reflected off the silver veins in the walls. I turned to ask if this is where he planned to keep me, but Zexion had already shut the door. His muffled footsteps got quieter and quieter as he walked away.

I kicked the wall- hard. "Great," I mumbled to myself. "Just great. It's everything your mother warned you about."

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After what seemed like hours, the door opened again, and there was Zexion.

He said curtly, "Follow me," with what looked like an annoyed expression gracing his hard features. Without waiting for me to indicate I had heard him, he turned and walked away.

"Wait!" I ran after him, finally falling in step with his quick pace after a brief struggle. "Where are we going?"

"I'm not answering questions right now," he said calmly.

"You had better," I hissed, "Or I am going to beat you up so hard you won't be able to walk for a week."

"Oh really?" He laughed coldly and threw me a smirk. His blue eyes danced with a sickening pleasure. "I would certainly like to see you try." Zexion turned back to where he was walking, face quickly becoming neutral. "At any rate, I still won't answer you."

How was I going to argue with that? I pouted. _Do I try to attack him, or not? _my mind wondered over and over again. He could just be being cocky about his supposed fighting skills, or he could be being truthful. Zexion didn't seem the honest type, only telling you the truth if it was harsh to the recipient's ears.

...he wasn't lying, was he?

The castle's harsh lights shined down from us from the ceiling, reminding me of the testing rooms in the high school. Either gray or silver walls looked back at us, never decorated with anything. I shivered as we finally reached a pair of high doors at the end of a long, straight hallway.

Zexion and I stared up at them for a while. They appeared to loom all the way to the ceiling. I had once read something about Disney World, how they used something called "forced perspective" to make everything seem much larger than it actually was. I think that that the same technique was probably being applied to these doors; of course they didn't go as high as the ceiling, hundreds of feet above us, but it looked that way.

I suddenly felt very, very small.

Zexion seemed used to the spacious areas and doors of the castle. He knocked. The small taps, which weren't much of a movement on him to begin with, resonated in the air around me.

There was no answer, but he waited patiently anyway. I turned to him and broke the silence.

"Um, can I ask you one question? Just one."

He looked at me sideways with something that looked like contempt. "Fine. That's all I'm going to answer."

"If you can use those...things..."

"Portals?"

"Yes, those." I sighed. He had seemed overly eager to correct me, and the contempt was fast being replaced by amusement. "Then why did we walk all the way here?"

Zexion now turned his head to look at me full in the face. "From my honest opinion, I'd rather keep you fresh, and using portals all the time would certainly take a toll on an intact person."

I wrinkled my nose. Fresh? That sounded full-out creepy. Was he thinking of me as just a...specimen or something? As he turned back to the door, I rubbed my temples with my index fingers. This man was a scientist, I assumed, and God only knew what he would do to me.

The doors creaked open, the rusty sound the hinges made even louder than Zexion's tiny knocks. The space beyond them was much dimmer than the hallway, but the longer I peered inside, the more my eyes became adjusted to the darkness.

A man's voice pierced the silence that had settled between the (now three) of us, long after the sound of the doors opening had departed the halls of the castle. "What is it, Zexion?"

Zexion cleared his throat. "Saix, it seems, has brought us back a girl from his recent mission. By accident."

The man stepped into the light.


	5. Chapter 5

**Update again. Yup. I'm going to start speeding things up now.**

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"And...and...it was just there..."

"Things aren't 'just there'. Someone had to have made them. In this case, that someone was my Number VII."

The man's name was Xemnas, as I found out shortly after I had stepped into the room. The way he spoke and gestured was enough for me to raise both of my eyebrows, but I didn't dare speak a word. I only reached about his collarbone, and even through the baggy coat he was wearing (which, compared to Zexion's, was on the short side) his well-toned chest showed through. His orange eyes hadn't left me since the moment I had stepped into the room, and only now did they wander off into space as he made a vague gesture with the hand that didn't sit in his lap.

"He never makes mistakes. Never. I'm surprised to find that he didn't...clean up after himself." Xemnas appeared to snap back into reality, and he leaned forward in his chair towards me. "Forgive me," he said quietly, a small smile working its way onto his tanned face, "I can't feel surprise. Pleasant shock, perhaps."

I wrinkled my nose in confusion, briefly forgetting my manners. "'Scuse me? You can't-"

"Feel? No."

"I don't understand."

"I see no reason to explain to you now."

I fidgeted in my chair. If Zexion and Saix had unnerved me before, than Xemnas was their true leader; if he had me feeling cornered this early in the conversation, then he was the very king of creepy. My fingers drummed out an unsteady rhythm on the chair, clenching and unclenching occasionally as my mind buzzed with ideas on how to get far away.

Or, more importantly, how to get home.

A silence had fallen between Xemnas and I. He tossed his head, unsuccessfully trying to rid his eyes of the long silver bangs as he gazed off to the side, bored. I couldn't help but look around myself, but there was absolutely nothing to look at: The room was devoid of objects save for the long table between the chairs he and I sat at. I started again with trying to persuade information out of this strange man.

"Mister Xemnas, I...my parents are probably sick to their stomachs right now...I need to get home...please," I hastily added.

"Home?" Xemnas slowly turned his head to face me, steepling his fingers in front of him on the table. "Now I don't understand. I've experienced home once, for a good portion of my life, and now..." He threw out his hands, gesturing at the space all around him. "This is my home."

The conversation was going nowhere, and frustration started to well up within me like water filling a glass tank that had just been submerged in the ocean. I crossed my arms and clenched my teeth. "Please, sir. Just send me home, I don't know where I-"

"I'm not sending you home." He gave me a firm look, and my insides writhed. The certainity in his orange eyes informed me that all my efforts were in vain. "It's a rare opportunity to find someone, unarmed, unable to do magic, that does not need to be captured by force. True, we see many that wander in here without knowing, but they've all stood frozen as the Heartless devoured them, inside and out, maybe leaving a scrap of a being for our ranks later. You've walked right into our hands."

His next words made my entire body stiffen with fear and my eyes widen.

"Whether you're aware of it or not, we've saved your life. We are not generous people, girl, and we require repayment."

It was everything my mother warned me about; I wasn't sure what "repayment" entitled, but I wasn't about to find out. I leapt up and started heading for the door, but with no words at all Xemnas managed to summon a new type of creature to block my way. They looked like thin, silver people in silver jumpsuits, but they were so deformed and smooth in their movements that I didn't even need to sense the inhuman aura they emitted to know that they weren't like me. Hisses lurked on the edges of my hearing, almost sad sounds tugging at my senses. I turned slowly to see that Xemnas had not moved from where he sat.

"Tell me your name. Just your first."

The sentence was so simple that I stood still for a while, the creatures wriggling and hissing behind me, gaping at Xemnas. Finally I realized his eyes on me, and I replied without even thinking about it. The fake name came so easily to my lips I didn't realize what I had done until I had said it. "Amanda."

That girl was going to hate me if I ever came back home and told her about it.

Xemnas slowly moved a hand, and the name appeared before me, the jagged letters shimmering gold. With what seemed like just a twitch of the finger, they started to circle me.

In a matter of seconds, they were spinning so fast that I could barely keep track of them. It was as if they were trying to take my true identity and hurl it away from me, creating another one of the dark portals and shoving my name, Liz, away from me forever, never to be found again. The new name was branding itself into my memory: _Amanda, Amanda, Amanda..._

And with a snap of Xemnas' gloved fingers, the name stopped. I closed my eyes and clutched my head, trying to rid myself of the dizziness. I started to become sick.

Then I opened my eyes, and saw the new name hovering before me.

Dxamana.

Where had the X come from?

I had no time to ask, but plenty of time to find out later. It was the end of Elizabeth, and the beginning of Organization XIII's unwilling new prisoner.


	6. Chapter 6

**Woah, sorry for being super late, but I hope even this little tidbit satisfies my reviewers.**

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Maybe it was just a matter of days. Maybe it was weeks or months.

I never did find out.

The training periods came one after another, different people every single time, new information being hurled at me like knives. Slowly I learned everyone's name and their personal preferences- Organization XIII was somewhat of a large group, especially when thirteen people were so powerful. Even some of the less intimidating members, such as the carefree Demyx and the youngest member, Roxas, could tear me apart without so much as blinking, and they reminded me of it every day.

Slowly I got stronger, and slowly they all got sick of me.

It showed around what seemed like the third week. I was going through my umpteenth training session with the fourth member, Vexen. He had been teaching me defense and the occasional law of physics that would apply to me, but didn't apply to him because, he said, he was nothing. This concept kept coming up, and all of the Organization refused to explain it to me and ignored my persistent questions.

"Guard! Guard!" he yelled at me while I scrambled to get away from the enourmous icicles that were racing towards me. "Damn it, Number Zero! What have I been teaching you all this time?!"

Number Zero was the title that had been assigned to me. You see, everyone had a number...and since I was nothing more than a pawn, they called me Zero: The fake member, their temporary weapon against someone called the Keyblade Master.

"Sorry, sir!" I squealed as I hastily stuck my weapons in front of my face- shuriken, no bigger than the palm of hand. They didn't do that much when they're working on their own (except give you about a million small cuts), but these had been enchanted so that they sapped some of my strength. The downside of this can be described in two simple words...

What strength?

The icicles slammed onto the metal, freezing the small weapons. I gasped and dropped them, jumping so they narrowly missed my feet. As I slumped to the ground, panting and squinting my eyes, Vexen let out a frustrated growl.

"I've been telling you this over and over," he ground out, kneading his forehead with two fingers. "Guarding is almost guaranteed to keep you safe, while running...running only gets you so far."

"I'm sorry," I repeated, shaking my head and rising. "Can I try it again?"

"No. Leave."

It was the first time I had been denied a second try, and the first time that someone had gotten fed up with me and sent me away early. I looked up quickly to see Vexen already dismissing his shield and wandering off. "Ve- sir! Come on, please?!"

He didn't answer, but disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, and that was the end of it.

Again and again I got sent away from some of my trainers, and days passed when all I could do was sit in my room, alone, as occasionally I would open my door to nothing but an empty void. It was a trick of Xemnas's, putting my room in the middle of nowhere, a trick that supposedly taught me discipline, a sort of time-out.

One day I got called back to my lesson, mere hours after I had been dismissed again. It was a magic lesson, with the only other girl, Larxene.

She stood in the middle of the room where she taught me, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. "The Superior told me to keep teaching you," she spat out before I could open my mouth to ask. "Don't say anything about it and show me that technique I told you about earlier, right now."

I knew better than to disobey.

There were the cuts, burns, and scratches that sometimes accompanied a failed technique, but that was nothing compared to the sort of emptiness that pressed on me during my stay in the castle. I hadn't proved myself to be truly worthy of any real friendship, and the most I got was a polite nod or wave while walking to my next training lesson. Sometimes I would get a half-hearted "Good job!" when I managed to do something right, but otherwise I felt lonely.

I felt like I was becoming one of these strange people.


	7. Chapter 7

**Ok, another chapter after another long time.**

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My first mission began with a rude awakening.

"Dxamanaaaaaa! Dxamanaaaaa!"

Demyx wasn't the type of person to knock on the door; instead, he just lets himself in and his voice does the rest of the announcing of his presence for you. I was still asleep when he entered, so when I jolted from bed, my head immediately started to bang with a headache.

"First mission! Get up!"

I rubbed my head. "What time is it, sir?" Even though Demyx was one of the friendlier of the bunch, I still had to call him "sir"; this odd look would cross his face when I disobeyed orders. He took what he did very seriouslym surprisingly.

"Five in the morning, actually." He grinned as he swept the covers off me with a flourish. "You get used to getting up super early in the mornings. Trust me."

Many who knew anything about Nobodies would put up a decent argument about them not needing to eat or sleep or do any of the things normal people do...but they have to. After all, they're just bodies. The only thing they lack is their sense of right and wrong and their emotions. So when Demyx shoved me toward the kitchen, ignoring my slumping figure and my complaints, I began to believe this fact was true. Although he knew what it was like to be this tired, he lacked the compassion to actually throw a few words of sympathy my way, beyond "Just stand up and force yourself to walk!"

After I had shoved a few bites of cold, bland food in my mouth, gotten dressed, straightened my hair, and put my hood up and walked myself to the door, it was only five thirty. Instead of anyone to congratulate me on getting this far, there was only Xemnas.

I winced at the sight of his strict face, a face usually reserved for when I did something wrong. However, his voice held not even a hint of anger when he spoke, only that monotone he adopted when getting ready to try and explain something.

"I want you to go to this world," he explained as a portal appeared with the flick of his wrist, "And capture as many Heartless as you can find. Fifty, at the least." Xemnas snorted at the sight of my bewildered expression. "If you've been progressing as satisfactorily as your trainers have said, that should be simple for you."

"F-fifty, then..." I managed a confident smile, which he brushed off with a narrowing of his eyes and a sideways tilt of his head. "Easy, Superior, easy. I can do that."

"It was easy for Number Thirteen. It should be easy for you." He nodded toward the portal. "You have ten seconds to step inside."

------------------

It took me a while, but I finally recognized the world I was in.

"Wonderland?! From 'Alice In Wonderland'?!" I grinned and bounced a little as I ran towards the nearest forest. "Alright! So cool!"

Before I could prepare myself, however, ten Heartless were standing in front of me in a second. I shivered, backing up towards the entrance. _Summon your weapons, stupid!_ I flexed my hands several times, but the familiar sheets of metal refused to return. I bit my lip and gazed back towards the yellow eyes which were staring at me hungrily.

"Need some help?"

I turned at the sound of the lilting voice, but there was no one there.

"Um...y-yeah! I do! Uh..."

In an instant, a chubby, striped cat was lounging on the rocks in front of me. He tossed his grinning head in his hands up and down for a few seconds before tossing it back on his head. "You certainly look different. Nothing as I've ever seen before."

My eyes were darting from the Cheshire Cat to the advancing Heartless and back again. "You mean...none of the others have ever been here?"

"What others? I know lots of others." The Cat's grin seemed to widen even further. "Tell me what others you mean."

"The-the-Organization XIII! Do you know them?!"

Slowly, he seemed to fade back into the leaves. "No, I haven't. Or maybe I have? Good luck on the shadows you're fighting, though."

I couldn't stare at his remaining grin for too longer, though; the Heartless pounced and I fought them off as best I could.

I had been told that I would be picked up as soon as I reached fifty captures, but I lost count at ten because they came so fast that counting wasn't worth it anymore. My arms were screaming after several hours of whacking Shadow after Shadow, Soldier after Soldier...

And then they all disappeared.

I dismissed my weapons with a groan, stumbling backwards to catch myself on an enormous flower. The special ability I had been taught that would catch Heartless rather than killing them drained almost all of my energy with every flick of my wrist it took to make it happen. This wasn't true! I was prepared for this, wasn't I? _All that training I received...don't tell me I need more!_

"Hey! Who're you?!"

I looked up to find myself staring in the biggest and bluest pair of eyes I had ever seen.


	8. Chapter 8

**HERE COMES MR. PROTAGONIST**

xxx0xxx

I had heard a lot of things about the Keyblade Master: Meddling, troublesome, irritating...

I had also heard many things about what he and his companions looked like. I mean, how hard would it be to spot a teenage, brown-haired boy with a dog and a duck following him?

No one had ever told me that the dog and the duck would be Goofy and Donald respectively. And no one had ever told me just how random in appearances this boy could be.

Well, I did the one thing that I had been taught never to do: I froze. I stared up at him with wide eyes, still panting with exhaustion. I was completely unfocused, and it showed in my eyes. Sora frowned.

"You look tired. Do you need help?"

I continued to stare at him. If I did need to stand there, gaping like an idiot, I didn't need to add to it by speaking. I pursed my lips together.

"Come on! We won't hurt ya!" Goofy added from over Sora's shoulder.

"Yeah! As soon as you're healed, we'll let you go on your way," Donald quacked, holding up his staff. "A Cure oughta do it, right, Sora?"

Sora nodded at me and grinned, a big toothy grin that made me raise an eyebrow. Didn't this boy know that I was his enemy? Hadn't Organization XIII encountered him before? "We'll help you. Go on, take my hand."

He reached for me...

Although Xemnas had underlined and bolded the fact that I was only to summon Nobodies in an emergency, I was forced into thinking fast. With the little fighting power that I had left in me, I raised a hand and let out a burst of energy. Dusks were on the small party in less than a second. They drew their weapons with screams of surprise and protest.

I ran as fast as I could, leaving Sora to shout in confusion after me. "Hey! Come back here! What did you-"

But then a Dusk leaped towards him, and he fell silent.

-----------------

He wasn't dead, that much I could tell. I wormed my way around Wonderland, eventually coming across a higher vantage point to rest on. I plunked onto the large tree branch with a sigh of frustration and raised a hand to call the Dusks back. I had done enough damage for one day.

The three Dusks that were still alive vanished into thin air, leaving Sora, Donald, and Goofy to slump back down on the ground.

"What were those thingies?" Goofy panted, taking off his hat to wipe sweat from his brow.

"I don't know," Sora mumbled, facing the ground with closed eyes. "That girl must've called them over..."

"But she ran away afterwards!" Donald pointed out. "Maybe she was too weak to fight them!"

I grinned. It was a good sign that I was keeping them guessing: It showed that I hadn't been as obvious as I thought I was being. Besides, it was clear that they had never encountered Nobodies before, let alone Organization XIII, so I was nothing more than a confused traveler with a silver coat to them. I wouldn't get a scolding for summoning Nobodies if I had cleaned up after myself, right?

Before I could think on the situation any further, the sound of a portal from behind me made me stand. His hood was up, but I could tell who it was: Lexaeus.

"I assume you've hit fifty if you're sitting here," he said quietly so as not to alert Sora and co. to his presence. "Let's go."

I stepped past him to go inside the portal he had made. If I was this tired after something so simple as capturing fifty Heartless, then what was I going to do on harder missions?


	9. Chapter 9

**Aw, crap, I realized that I mentioned Sora's name in the last chapter without even explaining myself or introducing him to Liz. Plot hole!**

xxx0xxx

"You let him see you?"

For days I tried to avoid Xemnas so that I didn't have to talk about what had happened back in Wonderland, but Xemnas managed to find out everything. Within days after my little blunder he had found me in the hall and asked me to speak with him.

Now here I was, squirming uncomfortably in a seat. I couldn't afford to screw up _anything_ here, let alone my first mission. This man was my ticket home, and displeasing him would be like putting that ticket through a paper shredder: it was stupid. Like it or not, I was going to have to be part of this Organization until Xemnas decided I could be let go.

Would that mean displeasing him and getting kicked out? Maybe if I was lucky, I'd be kicked back to Earth. Then I could flop down into bed, sleep, and then go to school the next day like nothing ever happened.

"He came out of nowhere, Superior," I stuttered. "I had captured fifty Heartless and was trying to catch my breath, then boom! There he was, standing in front of me."

Xemnas stared at me for a long time, still with that angry look on his face as my excuse sunk in. Finally, he seemed to buy it, and he waved me off, starting to root around on his desk for something.

"That's it?" I was incredulous. "No punishment or anything?"

He mumbled for me to go away.

-------------------------------

I didn't receive training anymore, but I still got a helluva lot of missions. It seemed that everytime something needed to be done, one of the first six of the Organization would drag me away from wherever it was and shove me in a portal. Was anyone else ever doing this much work? Even Marluxia and Larxene were around the castle more than I was.

The big news was that the Keyblade was on his feet and running. There was mention of someone named Maleficent, and whenever her name was uttered the word "Heartless" usually followed. Something always clicked in my brain whenever I heard mention of her: Maleficent? Wasn't that the lady from Sleeping Beauty? It wouldn't be too odd for that to be the case, considering the Wonderland world I was first sent to.

Not only was I always sent on missions, I was always sent to whatever world the Keyblade Master was in.

I'll use the example of the day I was sent to document new types of Heartless in Deep Jungle: Tarzan world. All I had to help me was a notebook in one hand and a heavy machine in the other, with base instructions on how to operate it. For hours I ran around in the undergrowth, sweating like mad in my Organization coat because of the heat, searching for weird-looking monkeys and lizards and lions that happened to have the Heartless sign on 'em. Whenever I found one of the monkeys, they'd huck banana peels and mangoes and nuts (and other things I'd rather not talk about) at me and take off, and then I'd have to run after them so the machine could zap them and I could write down the readings in the notebook. All in all, not the most appealing job on the planet.

While chasing after a particularly nasty monkey, I ran into Sora's group fighting a group of them. They didn't notice me at first, seeing as hundreds of Shadows and small leapord Heartless I had never seen before were mauling them. I tried to snatch up one of the leapords from the fray, but before I could think Donald had zapped them with a Fire spell. He also caught sight of me in the process of trying to sneak out and take it, and I was forced to run as fast as my legs could carry me.

Day after day, it was Sora, Sora, Sora. Rumors, hidden plots amongst the members, and theories flew around the Nobodies, and no one was actually nice enough to fill me in on what was happening.

I couldn't stand it anymore after weeks and weeks, and I hunted down Xigbar to ask him. He was one of the more sociable of the original six, and it was better than trying to hunt down Xemnas himself.

"What's going on?" I asked him. He was using a few of the Heartless I had tried so hard to trap for target practice.

"'What's going on'?" he replied, cocking his gun to the side to catch one that was trying to flee the room he was in. "Whaddaya mean, 'What's going on'? Lotsa stuff is going on, girlie."

I put my hands on my hips and leaned my weight all the way on one foot, trying to catch his eye so I could have a straight conversation with him. Didn't anyone here know that it was rude not to make eye contact with someone when you were talking with them? "About Sora. Everyone's talking about where he is and where they think he's going and what he's doing and blah blah blah. No one wants to fill me in, so I thought I'd finally ask someone."

Xigbar tutted as he dismissed his guns and turned his head to look at me sideways out of his one eye. "That's classified info. Afraid I can't tell ya."

"I'm a part of this Organization, too!"

"Not really. What part of "'Number Zero' do you not get?" He shrugged. "Hell, you shouldn't even be here!"

And that was that. The only way to find out was to confront the legend himself.


End file.
